Written on October 18, 2026. Covers my hike at Gothic Basin.
After going to hard on Mt. Pugh, me and my friends are working back up to that level of hike, doing Lake Serene and Scorpion Mountain as prep, now doing Gothic Basin as a next step.
The Hike
The distance to elevation gain ratio is misleading, as the first 1.5 miles or so is basically flat. Then after that you are sent up the side of a mountain with little reprieve for the rest of your trip. There are a couple of little waterfalls that you pass on the way up, and a bunch of great views. The trail follows the mountainside around lots of these sharp corners, giving false hope that around this corner will be the final stretch to the basin.
What the trail guide doesn't mention is that the actually interesting parts of the hike, the lakes where you would want to eat/camp at are another mile up the trail. We get to the middle lake, eat lunch there, and decide that we are confident enough in continuing on, and without looking at the map decide to go to the tallest peak at the basin, which you would assume is Gothic Peak.
We trekked our way towards this peak, over a rock slide that took out the trail, and started up the side. We eventually realized that this was in fact not Gothic Peak, and was the taller and much more technical Del Campo Peak, which we were absolutely not capable of at this point.
We stopped at a scenic spot, and began heading back down.
It was almost dark by the time we got down, and we headed home and got Chipotle. Was a very fun day, but it went longer than expected and we ended up somewhere around 13 miles.
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